Wikipedia protest shutdown

I don't know if anyone else has seen the announcement on Wikipedia, but the decision has been made to shut down the site for 24 hours, to protest against the SOPA and PIPA bills before Congress.

The notion that a few extremely rich companies will somehow be afforded protection from copyright infringement, without any "side-effects", is laughable. It just demonstrates that US Congressman must think it's still 1960-something. The world, and the notion of intellectual property, has moved on. Can't these idiots see that?

p.s. poor adoucette, what will Congress ever do without blindly accepting morons to listen to their misguided ideas?

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Maybe by listening to people who understand the ACTUAL problem and help craft legislation that will help prevent it.

There is an actual problem.

The solution is not simple.

Indeed, as I suggested in the thread on SOPA:

Of course, one way to improve legislation is to propose something to get this kind of feedback and use that during the mark-up process (still yet to be done) to tighten definitions and remove/rewrite proposed legislation to resolve these unintended consequences.

I doubt, for instance, that the Bill's author's intent was to "encourage criminal prosecution of libraries".

My guess is there will be a lot more discussion and rework before this legislation comes up for a vote.

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And indeed that is exactly what has been happening in the legislative process.

A proposal is made, then they hear from the parties and lobbiests and debated and the legislation is tweaked as needed to prevent unintended consequences (one of the trickier parts of any legislation dealing with technology)

The DNS blocking for instance, which was a big issue has been removed, which shows that the legislators are listening to the internet service providers.

In a surprise move today, Representative Eric Cantor(R-VA) announced that he will stop all action on SOPA, effectively killing the bill. This move was most likely due to several things. One of those things is that SOPA and PIPA met huge online protest against the bills. Another reason would be that the White House threatened to veto the bill if it had passed. However, it isn't quite time yet to celebrate, as PIPA(the Senate's version of SOPA) is still up for consideration.

The online protests about the bill were surprising and large. They ranged anywhere from callng Representatives, companies, and senators to get them to change their mind, to actively moving domain's away from and targeting the business model of the companies that supported/lobbied for the bill. GoDaddy lost well over 100,000 domains in the space of about 10 days due to their involvement with these bills, along with other various targets

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http://mashable.com/2012/01/17/sopa-pipa/ said:

Organizations that support SOPA include media outlets, their lobbying organizations and others.

By and large, the tech community has come out strongly against SOPA. Wikipedia, Reddit and now Imgur (a popular image hosting service) all plan to “go dark” to protest the bill Wednesday.

A public letter to Congress, signed by tech heavyweights such as Google and Facebook, called the bill dangerous to American innovation and cybersecurity, but also acknowledged that digital piracy is a real problem. The White House has also joined in with the anti-SOPA crowd in a blog post. And members of online communities such as Reddit have coalesced around their general disapproval of the bill, often claiming that Congress doesn’t possess a thorough enough understanding of the Internet to properly legislate around it.

So was analog piracy back when magnetic tape players/recorders arrived, before which the record companies had complete control over the production of vinyl recordings, because you needed expensive machinery to produce vinyl records.

So, did the media companies shoot themselves in the foot by selling magnetic tape recordings, which could be reproduced on inexpensive store-purchased equipment? Did they and the producers of tape players/recorders, foresee that they were enabling piracy of copyrighted products? When VHS arrived, did the media companies reflect on the new opportunities for pirates, which had been handed to them?

Did Congress consider a bill outlawing the sale of magnetic tape recorders? Why not? Why wasn't there a bill allowing the prosecution of stores who sold equipment that was used in illegal copying, such that stores which enabled piracy could be shut down and put out of business? Why not?

So was analog piracy back when magnetic tape players/recorders arrived, before which the record companies had complete control over the production of vinyl recordings, because you needed expensive machinery to produce vinyl records.

So, did the media companies shoot themselves in the foot by selling magnetic tape recordings, which could be reproduced on inexpensive store-purchased equipment? Did they and the producers of tape players/recorders, foresee that they were enabling piracy of copyrighted products? When VHS arrived, did the media companies reflect on the new opportunities for pirates, which had been handed to them?

Did Congress consider a bill outlawing the sale of magnetic tape recorders? Why not? Why wasn't there a bill allowing the prosecution of stores who sold equipment that was used in illegal copying, such that stores which enabled piracy could be shut down and put out of business? Why not?

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Because of volume limitations.
Which don't exist in the digital piracy world.

BUT, there IS copy protection built into Video tapes and VCRs.

The signal coming from the original video tape contains data that the TV set doesn't notice but a VCR cannot handle. This extra signal confuses the automatic gain control circuit in the VCR and causes the recorded signal to be garbled.

Try making a copy of a Disney Video and you will see that it doesn't work.

Of course tape machines weren't illegal. They have perfectly valid reasons even if they can be used for breaking the law.

The laws they are trying to come up are not intended to stop LEGAL use of the internet or content, but to stop illegal piracy.

But the question is. Here's another simple question: are you in favor of allowing technology to exist that enables the piracy of copyrighted material?

If no: then why are you even using the Internet?
If yes: then why do you agree there's a problem?

Sure there's a problem. Your example of copy protection in VHS tapes was defeated by "pirates" long ago. Most copy-protection schemes are defeated eventually. The problem appears to be that the legal concept of "ownership" has become redundant, or at least is seriously out of date. This process began when technology arrived that made copying easy and inexpensive.

"Volume limitation" is a crock. Any serious pirate would just purchase extra copiers.
But that's all history. It's much easier these days to reproduce multiple copies of digital media, copyrighted or not. It makes copyright look like an afterthought.

But the question is. Here's another simple question: are you in favor of allowing technology to exist that enables the piracy of copyrighted material?

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Yes

Doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to come up with ways to stop piracy.
On the other hand, I'm not willing to cripple the internet to stop it.
But if a reasonable way to prevent piracy can be found then, yes, I'm for it.

The problem appears to be that the legal concept of "ownership" has become redundant, or at least is seriously out of date.

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No, ownership is easily determined.
So is piracy.
Stopping piracy is a bit trickier, but still worthwhile so that artists get paid for their work.

it's much easier these days to reproduce multiple copies of digital media, copyrighted or not. It makes copyright look like an afterthought.

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So because it's easy to steal we should allow it?
Is that your position?

It really is. I'm a musician/songwriter, as are many of my friends. Do you think a person should work hard on recording their songs and then just give that work away? If you enjoy the work an artist does, support them by paying for their work. (Buy directly from them if possible.) It's really that simple.

I'd rather not see it controlled by ineffiecient technologies that will hamper internet traffic.

. . . if a reasonable way to prevent piracy can be found then, yes, I'm for it.

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And if Congress can find this "reasonable way" you would support that too? Or, you would support anything Congress does because, well, that's what Americans do? This despite tech-savvy companies claiming that Congress just doesn't have the technical expertise to find this "reasonable way"?

No, ownership is easily determined.

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Really? So if you buy a copy of a movie, who owns it? Do you? Does the store? Does the movie producer?